It is perhaps no surprise then that John Ware spent a significant amount of his 30 minute report speaking to two of the authors of the Report – Neil Robinson and John Bald; it is however a surprise that the contents of the show all but mirrored the recommendations in the report.

So what was the agenda behind the programme? Education Minister Michael Gove was interviewed and gave the Coalition government’s position on faith schools. Mr Gove was one of the founders of the Policy Exchange Think Tank and it comes as no surprise there are already media reports suggesting that as a result of the documentary, the government will target out of hours Islamic schools for monitoring and regulating thus associating them with extremism by default. When Robinson and Bald are added, the amount of coverage given to these 3 figures was disproportionate and perhaps belied the underlying agenda behind this programme – to cast suspicion on the legitimacy of Muslim faith schools in Britain in order to support the findings of the report.

While some of the contents of the programme created cause for concern and raised issues which Muslim faith schools need to ensure they tackle, including issues of separatism and citizenship, there were a series of accusations against schools and individuals which were based on tenuous links and belied a fundamental lack of understanding of the Muslim community and its interwoven links to religious scholarship. All Muslim schools by their very nature will have some form of spiritual guide, whether the link is formal or informal. John Ware attempted to cast doubt on the legitimacy of such links based on evidences from web-sites seeking to issue fatwas. In addressing these fatwas, he then imposed his own value judgments and assumed to label Muslim schools and Islamic teachings as the source of a lack of integration and separatist ideals. On other fronts, individual scholars were attacked by taking their words out of context.

The programme attempted to cast doubt on Muslim Schools, while providing only a cursory glance at other faith schools which mirror Islamic ones in terms of their core belief. It goes without saying that all faith schools should teach respect for others’ beliefs and traditions; however, to what extent should they conceal basic beliefs? For example, it is an Islamic, Jewish and Christian belief that anyone not following that particular faith is destined for hell. If that were not the case, then religions would be interchangeable. This fact should not and indeed does not prevent people from respecting each other’s choices – so why single out an Islamic text book which simply teaches what all these religions promulgate? The answer seems simple – John Ware used it to depict separatism when in fact it does no such thing. As a result, even the Muslim school which received unbiased coverage in the programme issued a press release stating the reporting was ‘prejudiced and poorly researched’.

In order to ensure that tolerance and democratic values are upheld in every part of Britain’s education system, perhaps what Mr Ware and Policy Exchange should stop doing is using excuses to alienate Muslim schools and start providing positive encouragement on how these values can be instilled across the board, in Jewish, Christian and Muslim schools, in failing state schools, in inner city areas where demoralization is high – in other words, throughout the country as one policy for all, not a separate policy for Muslims.

Instead, they presented the riots in Oldham, said to be the result of ‘segregation’ when in fact there were no Islamic faith schools in Oldham at or before that time. It appears that drawing such a link was in fact intended to aggravate the seeds of distrust sewn throughout the programme. The result of this would be the exact opposite of what the Reporter and Policy Exchange claim to advocate as they are in fact imposing separatist ideals on Muslims.

Last year, the Markfield based Policy Research Think Tank produces a report which Ware would do well to refer to. ‘Seen and Not Heard’ interviewed Muslims across Britain and found that the feelings of alienation did not emanate from within the Muslim community but were external – with young Muslims feeling that their British identity was always questioned by the wider society while they themselves could not identify with any country other than Britain. John Ware’s documentary does nothing to aid community cohesion and simply feeds into this forced separatism.

There are many issues to do with identity, citizenship, belonging and responsibilities which the Muslim community is still developing, however, when they are under attack from irresponsible journalism, right wing think tanks and extremists such as the EDL – one can only expect that this progression will be hindered in favour of self-preservation, and this is exactly what we are seeing now.